


Hats Off to Ya

by Questions3



Series: Fuzzy Footed Foolishness [4]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Female Bilbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 09:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/990252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Questions3/pseuds/Questions3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Bofur lost his Hat and Bilbo brought it back to him. It's kinda like they're playing an elaborate game of fetch :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rivendell

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading [Five times Bilbo took Bofur’s hat, and one Bofur gave it to Bilbo instead](http://archiveofourown.org/works/659151) by [sra_danvers](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sra_danvers/pseuds/sra_danvers) for the fiftieth time and this germinated in my head. I highly suggest sra_danvers' fic. Mines kinda cute but sra_danvers' is awesome.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys steal Bofurs hat and run to Bilbos room, thrusting the hat onto her head and throwing her out to the raging Bofur who stutters and blushes at the cute little Hobbit lass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fíli and Kíli are little terrors and are gonna end up with a mattock to the upside.

     She should never have opened her door. The minute she heard the frantic rapping at the entrance to the room the Elves had been so kind to give her (that she had eagerly accepted even if the rest of her ridiculously stubborn Company members had refused their own rooms and insisted on camping out together in the garden that connected said rooms) she should have dove under the large feather bed, curled into a ball, and waited them out. Instead, as the fool of a Took she was she opened the door. And still, there was a split second after she had recognized the Durin boys that she could have slammed the door in their unholy gleeful faces, rather as she should have done at Bagend. But instead she gaped at the frantic lads and asked the same question that had turned her into a troll’s handkerchief, “What’s the matter?”

     No answer was forthcoming but a united effort in shoving the littlest member into the room and slamming the door shut behind them. Staring up at the panting lads from the floor where they’d knocked her down she felt her concern quickly shifting into irritation and anger, “What the hell is that?!” for clutched in the young princes’ hands was a rather lumpy and familiar brown hat.

     Before either lad could respond to the irate Hobbit’s query another voice floated through the door, “Alright lads, fun’s fun but if’n I don’ get me hat back in the next ten seconds I’mma cut through that door and flay the pair of ya like a pair of ragged cat.” The threat was delivered in a lilting growl, and even with the happy overtone, the steel underlining the menace was frightening enough to have the Durin boys glancing at each other in concern. Bilbo was about to demand they fix their trouble and leave her and her room intact when that unholy light beamed into their eyes again as they turned twin demon smiles onto her prone body. Terror spurred her up and away but not fast enough to get away from Kíli as he leapt after her, sweeping her up into his arms with a cheerful laugh, Fíli hissing behind him, “Come now, Miss Boggins, you asked what the matter was and we’ve the perfect way to fix this little mess…”

     Bofur wasn’t one to deny himself a bit of fun. Normally he was the first one there with a joking comment and a ready laugh. And he could certainly appreciate the Durin boys and their youthful enthusiasm, encouraging them with his cheerful disposition. But there were just some things a dwarf did not play with. His hat would be a prime example. So he felt fully justified in hefting his pick on his shoulder and preparing to destroy the barrier between him and the dubious dwarf duo on the other side. So intent on his hat he didn’t take the time to realize exactly whose room the two little shits had taken refuge in until he found himself suddenly dropping his pickaxe and replacing it with arms full of Hobbit Burglar.

     Now he’d taken note the first night in the Shire the little thing was comely when flustered, downright pretty when embarrassed. Mussed and fussed from travel and a rough night she made a sweet picture, and he’d recognized a certain attractive quality to her pouting continence when Balin compared her little sword to an elfish letter opener. But as sweet and eye-catching as she could be, he’d yet to realize how much unadulterated _cuteness_ could be displayed in the round face until he found it framed by squashed black curls, with those overlarge amber eyes looking up at him from under the brim of his own oversized hat.

     Shock registered in her owlish eyes, as she lay there, supported by Bofur’s mine toned musculature. As she stared up in confusion and growing trepidation she felt a warmth spread through her face, and it only intensified as she felt those quite nice arms contract around her, drawing her up and closer to the toymakers body. So preoccupied with her own sensory overload she barely registered the door to her room slamming shut behind her and didn’t see the growing blush behind Bofur’s mustache.

     He didn’t even mean to close in on her but it was becoming harder and harder to deny that his favorite hobbit expression was, in fact, her blushing. It was the slamming of the door and the shameless giggling he heard coming behind it that had him finally yanking his gaze from the glory in his arms to the barrier saving the line of Durin from a tragic ending. Apparently that was all it took to break whatever had kept Bilbo cemented to him as she quickly gained her feet and placed a few feet of distance between the two of them, leaving Bofur’s arms bereft and achingly empty for a moment before he quickly retook his pickaxe again and looked at his shuffling feet a moment to gather himself before looking once more on the overly adorable little Burglar where she stood in his hat. “Um… it’s quite fetching on ya lass…” he barely recognized the gruff tone he managed as his own voice.

     Shaking off the shock (definitely not shivering from the low resonance of the toymakers voice) of being thrust into this precarious situation, Bilbo finally whipped the hat from her head and extended it to her friend, “I’m so sorry Bofur, I had no idea what those two imps were up to.”

     Retaking his shabby hat and replacing it on his own head Bofure chuckled carelessly, “I’m sure you didn’t lass, no harm done… made quite a picture… Ah, um, I’d best be getting back to Bombur before he breaks anymore elfish woodwork… um, see you at dinner.” And with that Bilbo found herself suddenly alone, Bofur’s retreating form whipping around a corner as she watched. Inhaling deeply she was awarded a second of calm before she let loose a high pitched squeak as Fíli and Kíli popped out of her room and grabbed ahold of one of her arms apiece, raising her from the ground and taking off with their new favorite little ally.


	2. Goblin Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo finds the discarded hat while riddling with Gollum and returns it to Bofur when she catches up with the group

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh, this is going to be my least favorite chapter. The last three are cuter and funnier. But this has to happen before we get to the rest of it :p

     Bofur’s downtrodden expression was the last thing she saw before the floor fell from under her…literally. Suddenly she and the company found themselves crashing through the mountain into a Goblin trap. Terror had gripped her so hard there was no breathe left in her for the landing to take, though she was significantly better off from the rest, having landed _on_ Bombur instead of _under_ him. Of course she instantly bounced off and onto unforgiving stone and was pounced on by grabby grubby hands and cruel ministrations as her pack was wrenched from her and she was thrown to the side as the goblins moved onto disarming the dwarrow.

     As soon as the Company was swarmed they were marched off to unknown whereabouts, their weapons taken up by the horde but their possessions strewn across the cliff. Ori’s knitting was ripped apart, Bombur’s foodstuff was strewn about, and Bofur’s hat was thrown from his head over the cliff by a particularly malicious little fuck. The toymaker hardly noticed, however, as he was far to concerned with fighting his way towards the cowering Hobbit lass where those filthy swarming fiends were stepping all over her as they thrust the Company forward and away from their entrance. Before he knew it they were dragged away and in front of the largest, gelatinous creature he’d ever had the misfortune to smell…

     Bilbo was at once terrified of the goblins and amazed at their idiocy as they completely disregarded her presence (though exactly how much trouble a hobbit could be to a nest of the foul beasts was beyond her imagination). In any event, she couldn’t leave the dwarrow to this twisted fate and began to skulk after the masses. Unfortunately she wasn’t a very effective stalker it turns out as she was caught by a rogue sentinel. She tried to fight him off with her elfish letter opener but his enraged and fiendish hunger gave him the unholy advantage that sent the pair toppling over the edge into darkness.

***

     There are certain experiences that, if Bilbo could she’d scrub from her memory with the all the fury of a certain dwarven King. As it was, she was going to have nightmares for years to come of freakish glowing eyes and a hacking voice yelling into the darkness after a thief. The only positive from that little side venture was Bofur’s hat. She’d found the bedraggled thing all of three paces from her by the glow of her little sword and had managed to shove it onto her own head right before the glowing blue had been snuffed out along with the goblin. It had given her a certain amount of comfort as she forged ahead through the game of riddles and then through the darkness after the screeching creature.

     Finding her dwarrow she was overcome with relief as she stood there listening to Thorin, once again, under estimateing the weight of her word as he insisted to the Grey Pilgrim she’d abandoned them and saved herself back in that dank hell. Barely managing to stop herself from slapping the annoying King she slipped her ring off and walked up to the group, “Sorry to disappoint but I’m very much right here.”

     Bofur was glued in place when the lass burst into the clearing, his hat engulfing her head, looking as bedraggled as a half drowned kitten, but still glaring up at Thorin from where she held herself firm. Even as ridiculous as she was in this moment he found himself thinking again, as he had been in an alarmingly large number of his quieter moments, just how charmingly seamless she seemed when wearing his most prized possession. He barely registered as the group burst forth with cheers of relief and joy, Dwalin demanding to know how she’d gotten loose from the caves, Gandalf insisting it didn’t matter, and then Thorin asking her, “Why did you come back?” his blue eyes incredulous as he stared at their wee Burglar. Bofur came very close in that moment to treason as he glared at Thorin’s head for demanding such from their littlest member, especially after he’d almost sent her running off in the first place.

     Her response nearly felled him where the goblin King’s giant mass hadn’t as she side stepped the majestic King Under the Mountain and redeposit his hat onto his head, smoothing it out with her tiny hands, murmuring softly as she did so, “I had a hat to return to a friend, and friends to see home.” Deep brown eyes met and held amber for a long moment that was only interrupted by the intrusion of Azog and his orcs.


	3. Beorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damn sheep, stealing hats and trampling little Hobbit lasses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheep are creepy, I don't care if they are trained.

     It was bad enough, to his way of thinkin’, that his body felt akin to tha’ time he’d been thrown (read tripped) down the deepest mineral shaft in the Blue Mountain. He was still dealin’ with tremors from finding, with alarming certainty, eagle was no’ his preferred form o’ travel. And he was desperately tryin’ to forgive how he’d come to be one o’ the five possessors in all of Arda the knowledge that Glóin had a scar on his (overly large and grotesquely hairy) arse that resembled an Oliphant. But really, things were beginin’ to wear on the poor miner turned toymaker and his usually cheery disposition had been taking a right and thorough beatin’ since the Carrock (though it certainly had _nothing_ to do with the way Thorin had wrapped hi- uh Bilbo into his kingly arms (read here as it had _everything_ to do with how Thorin had embraced _his_ bloody hobbit)). He’d managed to fall asleep last night (after being pinned down by Óin for treatment (read as torture and smelly ointment rub downs)) on the straw pallet Beorn had provided each o’ them, sore and aching from their last tumultuous forty-eight hours, but eager for the respite unconsciousness would bring his taxed body (and largely overextended patience (once again, read here as jealousy)). It had almost been a refreshing wakening, the sun was dimly lighting the inside of their sleeping quarters, allowing a gentle glow to nudge the weary travelers awake rather than the blinding brilliance of the burning star, nor the none too gentle kick to the ribs Bifur’d been dealin’ him an’ Bombur the entirety of the quest. He’d been fixin’ to greet the day in a right jovial fashion when he’d noticed something off about his usual constitution. It took his befuddled wits no more’n’a tick to understand the deficiency and he was suddenly moving with an alarming amount of speed towards the Durin lads, with a great deal o’ menace about his person.

     Bilbo woke with a shock as Bofur blurred by her own sleeping pallet and ran down the ladder to the breakfast table where the wakeful members of the Company were partaking of a late second breakfast (or an early elevensies, however you prefer to view it). Curious (and not a little worried about the abused minor’s physical constitution considering the pummeling he’d received from having a massive dead goblin land on him) she crept out of her own nest and followed her dear friend, only to dodge out of the way when he and the Durin heirs began to tear the breakfast room apart. Shocked at the violence in her normally good-humored companion she tried to understand what the dispute was about but was interrupted when a _sheep_ came up behind her bleating and shaking and gnawing on Bofur’s prized hat.

     Now, Bilbo had been showing much stronger moral fiber and strength of character than she’d ever had to before on the entirety of this trip. She’d performed her hostess duties to thirteen belligerent and unruly dwarrow with only a modicum of hiccups (read she fell into a dead faint and failed in her flustered attempts at throwing them all out), exchanged recipes with a trio of mountain trolls, played a merry game of chase with warg and wizards, endured those same thirteen dwarrows ill behavior in possibly the most elegant home she’d ever seen (or would see again), grappled with Stone Giants, riddled with the bulbous eyed demented, faced down Azog, and been _hugged_ by _Thorin Oakensheild_ (read his Majestic Broodiness). So her reaction to the sudden appearance of rather large sentient sheep was beyond appropriate for even the least tried hobbit, and far overdue for a young lass who’d been thrown into the arms of a massive shifter who poked her in the stomach and called her a ‘wee bunny’. She screamed. And then she screamed again as she chased after the fleeing fleabag to retrieve and avenge Bofur’s hat.

     The shrill shriek that emitted from the Burglar was enough to put an end to the ill conceived attack on the Durin lads, for as wiry as Bofur was he was still a good number of decades older and far from his youthful peak. Seeing the littlest member of their Company then brace herself against the floor and warble a war cry to rival Mahal himself as she gave chase to the fluffy white beast that had apparently taken a shine to his headgear had everyone in fits of laughter as they, too, began chasing the fleeced devil.

     But a wily thing it was and had the lot of them groaning more then once as they flew into walls and furniture, barely stopping from falling into each other (save Fíli and Kíli who were bloody bouncing off everything and everyone they could as they turned into a greater liability than aid for the retrieval). Ori was the first to be placed out of commission, along with his fussing brother Dori, when the twins kicked the pair into the table as they raced after Bofur, Bilbo and the Sheep, upending the days offerings onto the floor and the heads of the downed Company. Glóin was next as he ran full tilt into a wall after the shifty fiend used it to bound over his shocked head. Bifur and Bombur found themselves ran into the ground as they tried to _hold_ their ground against the Sheep. Nori came the closest of all as he tried to drop from a shelf onto the things back but fell short as it evaded the twins, leaving the three in a pile of limbs and groans. Even Thorin found himself tripping over a downed Óin’s ear horn and landing onto a puddle of upended honey. Dwalin met a similar fate when he found himself bashed in the arse by one of the sheep’s compatriots while he was doubled over laughing at his King. 

     This turn of events left only Bilbo and Bofur trailing the creature (Balin and Gandalf having declined to lower themselves to suck frivolity and finding it rather more amusing to watch the disaster that was their leader and his Company), Bilbo coming from the front and Bofur sneaking around from the back. Neither had taken the time to place the other, both firmly transfixed on their goal. So neither realized the other was racing towards the sheep at the same exact moment, and neither had taken the time to think that such an obviously mischievous and smart creature would have come up with a strategy all its own by this point. It watched with its creepy vertically slit eyes as her master’s new ‘bunny’ bounded forward, and listened as the one she’d taken the tasty treat from rushed her back. With an almighty bleat that reverberated through the bones of the last two warriors of Thorin’s felled Company, she charged the littler of the two.

     Bilbo’s eyes went from determination to shocked horror as it came at her, causing her to slide to a halt in fear as the thing leapt over her, dropping the ragged hat onto her head, blinding the Hobbit for a few precious moments. Bofur didn’t stand a chance in Mordor as he careened right into the flustered hobbit and the two crashed to the floor. The next thing he knew he had a face full of curly black hair and their legs were an entangled mess as he pressed the wee lass into the floor. Dazed, he glanced down into a pair of equally confused amber eyes staring up from under the floppy brim of their mutual goal and felt his own face begin to burn as the lass wriggled under him for a tactile moment of glory and bliss before a red stain chased its way across her own cheeks. The toymaker was about to jump to his feet, he really was, when a small smile lit the flushed face of his hobbit and she reached up to deposit the troublesome hat onto his own tangled head. Well, he could do little else than smile back at such a sweet gesture and, after a moment or two more (purely to get his bearings, had nothing to do with feeling like Mahal had suddenly blessed him with an Arkenstone of his own the _size_ of the Lonely Mountain), rose to his feet and helped the little lass back to her own with a cheerful grin and a flourishing bow as thanks. All of which made Bilbo giggle and Bofur’s smile grow all the wider.

     As the two champions were engaged with each other and everyone else in the room was groaning and moaning over their disgraceful ending, no one but Balin took note of Gandalf as he patted the head of a particular Sheep as she marched back to her brethren outside. Balin was also the only one who didn’t flinch when Beorn burst into the hall in the next moment demanding to know what in the name of the Valar they had done to his house.


	4. Mirkwood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spiders and Elves. She snatches it up and brings it back to him in the dungeon. He makes her keep it to stay a little warmer in the dank place. Then down the river for luck. She plops it onto his head with a relieved smile when he tumbles out of his barrel unharmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spiders and Elves and Dwarrow, oh my!

     Spiders. Giant, sentient, _talking_ , spiders… Whatever she’d done in a past life to upset the Valar so terribly she was officially the sorriest creature to exist in any and all the Ages. Here she found herself, Bilbo Baggins of The Shire Baggins’s, hanging upside down from a bloody tree branch in the middle of this thrice bedamned forest that Yavanna herself had abandoned, trying to quickly and carefully saw her companions out of their silk cocoons. There was just nothing wholesome about this forest, and if attacked her dwarrow one more time she was going to cheerfully dance a jig through the thing lighting it aflame as she went.

     But first she had to find a way to lower the suddenly freed and very disoriented Dwalin. So far none of her friends had faired very well from, what she assumed was poison the spiders emitted. She’d already released and lowered most of the line of Durin, only Thorin and Glóin left now that she’d found Dwalin. Nori was helping her as best he could, being the only other member fleet of foot naturally, thus hindered but not completely diminished by his lethargic limbs. He’d found the rest of his family unit and most of the family Ur, only Bofur still unaccounted for, and honestly, Bilbo was beginning to think the toymaker wore his hat as a source to ward off evil. Or it was attracting evil, she couldn’t decide. All she knew is whenever he was dispossessed of it, such as now (it was seated benignly at the base of the tree she’d scaled to rescue the Company), she found him in worse and worse shape afterwards.

     Keeping this new theory in mind she climbed to the cocoon at the very top of the spider nest and carefully slashed through the silk. Once again, the forest (or the Valar (possibly even the evil aura that existed in Bofur’s bloody hat for all she knew)) worked against her, as this cocoon was far less sturdy and sent the stupefied dwarf tumbling out at an alarming speed. Only her own quick reflexes stopped him from splattering on the forest floor, though it wrenched her poor arm clear out of its socket. Blood dripped from her bitten lip as she looked down into the terrified dwarrow’s eyes as he tried to find his bearings where he hung from their clenched hands looking up at his hobbit, “Lass… wha… wha ‘appened?”

     It was Nori who saved the pair from further discomfort, having released Glóin he climbed to Bilbo’s aid, shifting Bofur out of the precarious hold, Kíli coming up behind the injured hobbit and helping her down. She reached the bottom with the rest of her dwarrow just in time for a shriek that could bend metal erupted from the forest around them as the Spiders began to converge. “Oh Mahal, save us,” Fíli moaned from his slouched position on the ground as he saw the beasts moving in. The Company was in no shape just yet to handle this, she hardly any better, but then, they didn’t have a handy little gold ring of invisibility.

     “Nori! Kíli! Get them out of here! I’ll lead them off!” running into the fray she put on her ring before the dwarrow could contradict her and started hacking away, single handedly, at anything that came near her with too many bloody legs with her newly christened Sting. She wasn’t going to be able to kill them all but her singing certainly had them flying after her in a true fury:

      “Old fat spider spinning in a tree!

       Old fat spider can't see me!

       Attercop! Attercop!

       Won't you stop,

       Stop your spinning and look for me!

       Old Tomnoddy, all big body,

       Old Tomnoddy can't spy me!

       Attercop! Attercop!

       Down you drop!

       You'll never catch me up your tree!”

     “GET IT!”

     “KILL THE FOUL THING!”

     “WATCH ITS NASTY STING!”

     She’d have laughed if she had any breathe to do so, but between the weaving and the singing and the hacking, she found she barely had any left over, and what she did went to the pain radiating in her dislocated shoulder. Finally, after rolling near three dozen of the things to their doom the rest fled the scene, crying about sharp stingers and evil little flies. With a final burst of energy, Bilbo ran back to the clearing and found the trodden path her Company had taken. Her eye caught on a mass of limp leather and fur. _Why in the name of all that is good and well in this world…_ Picking up the mislaid hat she once again let it engulf her own head _I’ll sew it into his braids next I see him I swear it!_ Even in pain she couldn’t help but take comfort in the familiar feel of the headgear, and soon found the scent soothed her battle-thrummed body as she followed after her friends.

     Perhaps simple fire was too good a fate for this blasted forest. Given the opportunity, she was going to tempt Smaug out of that mountain and set him on Mirkwood. Only her tired and weakened state had her forgetting to take her ring off, thus saving her from tumbling into the hands of the elves that were currently manhandling her dwarrow! She watched as Dwalin and Glóin tried to put up some semblance of resistance but they were too muddled to out maneuver the agile elves. With a lot less trouble than anyone was happy with; the tall folk began to march the Company deeper into the wood.

     Sighing sadly, Bilbo followed behind, silent and unseen.

 ***

     Bilbo was loath to admit it but she was taking conscious note that her vocabulary had increased dramatically with this constant exposure to Aulë’s folk. When the King Thranduil had her friends dragged into his deep dank dungeon she’d muttered about the treeshagger as she followed her Company. When the bastards locking them away dragged a frantic Ori away from an equally distressed Dori she’d bitten back her comments about the Craftless Topsiders and their Goblin-rutting mothers. When they beat Kíli into his own cell, and threw Fíli down a completely different corridor screaming for his brother she began thinking of ways she could shave their pretty heads. But it was when Bifur began to desperately gesture and holler in Khudzul when they separated him from his younger cousins that made the sweet, soft and peaceful Shirling swear vengeance and begin toying with the possibility of saddling a wyrm. For now, though, all she could do was wait for the Orc-spawn to leave so she could reassure her friends.

     Bofur was practically climbing the bloody walls. The toxin had worn off somewhere between being captured and being imprisoned. And with his hard fought clarity he was able to take in the angry yowls of his cousin as Bifur howled threats of vengence through the echoing elf halls, he could hear the Durin lads calling for each other (and wasn’t that as unnatural a sight as ever seen, Kíli more then ten paces away from Fíli and the contrast), more distressin’ than the Durin’s howling was wee Ori’s choked off sobs as he tried to maintain a strong front for his elder brother who was banging fit to bring the entire infrastructure collapsing about their ears. But what had poor Bofur worrying his braids as he circled the cell, lookin’ closer an’ closer for some weakness, was the look of pain he’d seen flash across his lass’s face as he’d hung from her overextended arm in that blasted tree. Dazed as he’d been he couldn’t understand the pinched expression, but with the toxin worked through it was clear he’d hurt their little Burglar something fierce. And now she was stumbling about, out in the woods, chased by those buggered crawlies, alone and injured. Cursing a blue streak all the way back to his Blue Mountain he pounded into the walls and bars, despair and guilt drowning the cheer he wore as surely as he wore his hat… great.

     Sinking to the floor of the cell he leaned into the bars as the silence settled around him, relaxed as soft fingers carded through his disheveled braids and – wait a Rhosgobel Rabbits pace!

     His head flew up to meet those concerned amber eyes he’d been seeing in and out of his dreams so often these past months. “Bilbo!” he reached through the bars and grasped her tiny face in his hands, bringing their foreheads together through the bars. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the feel of his furry brimmed hat as it brushed against him where it had found its second home atop his hobbit’s head. Just as swiftly as relief had run through him concern and guilt came pounding through as he jerked back to see her, now restrained, arm, “Ah, lass, I’m so sorry ‘bout tha,” he whispered weakly as he ran a hand lightly over the makeshift sling Óin must have wrapped her in.

     Her soft little hand came up and grabbed his as he turned his gaze down to the floor. Blowing an irate breathe from her nose Bilbo grasped his chin and brought his eyes back to her own, “I don’t have the proper time to tell you just how foolish your guilt is so you’ll have to settle for the short version and believe me right off. It’s hardly something I blame you for and I’ll not have you mired in ridiculous remorse over an action I hardly regret. I’d give both my arms to keep yo– the Company – safe! Now, if you would please revert to your previous cheerful demeanor, it would help me greatly as I find our way out of this weed-eaters dungeons!” ire and embarrassment colored her puffed out cheeks as she began to take the hat from her head and hand it back to its owner.

     Truly he was falling harder and harder with every rush of pink that graced her cheeks. And with that in mind he grasped the flaps on either side and settled it firmly over her head, “Keep it wit ya lass. It’ll keep you warmer in this dank place. Can’t have our wee burglar shivering like a leaf… less I’m the one causin’ ‘em,” his joke fell a little flat as his voice dropped an octave but he was rewarded with said shiver and that scrunched up face his lass got when she was trying not to laugh at something she saw as off-color but clearly entertained her. With one last squeeze to his hand over the bars she was gone again, but at least now he had hope… for more then their escape at that.

***

     Save her from the stubbornness of dwarves! Next time Gandalf brings a party of _anything_ to her smial she’s running out the back and never looking back. It had taken her _weeks_ to find Thorin, and then weeks more to formulate some kind of feasible plan to spirit them all away from under the ever-vigilant elf fortress. Her arm had _healed_ by the time an opportunity had finally fallen into their laps. And upon being set free what did she get from her ornery friends?! Protests and whining the likes of which would put any fauntling to shame as she desperately tried to shuffle them all into barrels and out of their enemies grasp. It was only her threatening to lock them back in their bloody cells and Thorin coming over to her side (and wasn’t that a nifty piece of magic? If there was a ring for that she’d sell her every dear possession for such a gift) that got them to finally see reason. And the lot of _them_ were  _in_ the bloody barrels; she was the one clinging to Bofurs hat with one arm and the outside of a barrel like some demented lichen with the rest of her battered limbs through rapids and rocks. What in the name of the Mother the rest of them had to complain about as she started to release them was beyond her, but after Dwalin’s sour threats to thrash her around, Thorin’s groaning about putting her in the next barrel, Fíli griping about apples, and Bombur crying as he grasped the ground for dear life, her joy in being freed of that awful place was thoroughly soured.

     As she wrenched the next top off she was scowling fiercely with the sopping wet hat sliding into her eyes. As a result she pulled a little too forcefully and flew back into the knee-deep water onto her already assaulted arse. Tears were welling up in her eyes as she felt strong hands grasp her shoulders and a concerned voice ask, “Are ye alright lass?!”

     The panicked toymaker rubbed the chilled hobbit arms below his hands and glanced over the obviously bruised creature. He was about to call out for Óin when his sopping wet hat was dropped onto his head and he found himself thrown back onto his own backside with a lap full of sobbing hobbit, her wee arms wrapped tightly around his neck as she burrowed into his chest. He heard a babbling about ‘ungrateful ingrates’ and looked up at the guilt-ridden faces surrounding them. Glaring back at the recently freed Company members he enveloped the little Burglar into a tight embrace.

     He didn’t let her go until she’d cried herself out.

     And when she started sneezing he wrapped her in his own jacket and carried her the rest of the way to Esgaroth.


	5. Erebor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’d been looking for her body on the battlefield for three days. He’d lost his two most precious things in all Middle Earth and now he just wished he could see her walking back to give him his hat back just this one last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst, angst, angst, and then ridiculous happy ending cause I'm a sucker.

     They’d been sweeping through the battlefield for the last three days. The blood muddied field, stained black and red from a war that none had seen coming, from a war she never should have been apart of. Hobbits were peaceful creatures of light and nature; they weren’t made for war and violence. Yet there she’d been, in the thick of it all. True none of them had actually seen her, invisible once more, but still helping them, saving them, this time from their own stupidity instead of that of spiders and elves. Each of the Company had a story. Balin had been hacking his way towards Thorin and Dwalin when suddenly he heard the death cry of a warg behind him. Glóin and Óin had nearly been overrun by a troop of orc when feet from them a small rock fall had buried the scum. Nori had been struck down, Dori falling to his side in fear. Ori was left to guard the pair, the littlest dwarf nearly overrun when suddenly half the charging front was falling to an invisible force, all the evidence he had of a being were the cuts and gashes being flayed into the flesh before him. Bofur found his family and himself being wrenched out of the way of warg and orc projectiles throughout the battle.

     Even cast out she was still there for each of them, defending them, caring for them. Even as they failed her time and again, she came back to them, a little bruised, a little wilted, but filled with life and acceptance. So why was this time so different? Why hadn’t she stumbled back to their camp with her shiny sword and soft smile? Why hadn’t she come back to celebrate with them, their victory? Even the King and his heirs had managed to rally, as close to Mahal’s halls as they’d ever been, the trio had fought their way back to them once again. Kíli was ragged, barely able to move without pain, his arm fighting an infection that could still potentially take it from him, but with the elves aid he would survive. Fíli’s eye had remained in his head, though the gash had nearly taken his face off. So he’d heal and have a lovely scar to prove his worth to all the young lassies. Thorin’s chest had been crushed, but barring any lingering infection, his chances were looking better and better each day. And each day the King Under the Mountain asked after the Halfling he’d wronged so often, and so harshly. Each day he asked, and each day they came back from the field empty handed.

     Bofur’s voice was gone as the end of the third day began to seep the light from the sky. He felt a chill air course through his unbound hair where it had fallen from his traditional braids during the fighting, his hat flying away in the mayhem. Bombur had tried to get him to head back to the tents, to cleanse himself and fix his appearance. That had been yesterday. He hadn’t slept in the three days since the battle; he hadn’t slept since the last night she’d slept by him in the halls of Erebor’s thrown room. As addled as his gold-fogged mind had been, it had still been impossible to sleep away from his true treasure. Since Laketown the pair had grown closer, he’d carried and then helped Óin care for the sick hobbit throughout their stay with the Men. He’d almost stolen away with her before they made it to the mountain, adamantly against this suicide mission but the lass had insisted, she’d signed her contract and wouldn’t leave them now that they’d come so close. With a smile and a hug she’d run off into the mountain with Balin.

     The riches of Erebor had been vastly understated, and the draw of gold underappreciated by the Company. They’d all been under its thrall. All save their little Burglar, she’d seen right through it, unfazed by the glittering mounds. She’d stayed with them through it though; she’d tried to talk sense back into their befuddled minds. He remembered very clearly the moment she’d snapped. The day the Elves and Men had come with Gandalf to the gates and been turned away. Even then she’d stayed, she’d found him and begged, she’d grasped his coat as he’d began draping her in chains and rings, a diadem had been fitted to her head and her eyes had flashed like gold in the light of the cavern. He’d thrown her down onto the dunes of coin and covered her slight struggling form. He blurrily recalled her pleading, and then a very sharp and all consuming pain before she was throwing him off and running from the room. His next conscious moment was seeing her in Thorin’s hands, hanging from the parapet. She’d betrayed them, sided with their enemies, but even then he needed to be held back by his cousin and brother as he tried to reach her. In the end Gandalf had saved the hobbit, and she’d glanced at him once more with tears falling down her cheeks as she was lowered to the wizard.

     And now, now she’d been struck down in this battle, one she’d tried to prevent, one she’d managed to save them from surely dying in as the Elves and Men had come to their aid. They couldn’t even find her body strewn among the masses.

     Bofur’s gaze was blank and grieved as he fell to his knees in the muck and grime, mute from strain and grief. He’d give anything, he’d give his gold, all the gold in that bloody mountain to see his wee one wondering back up to him with his hat clutched in her hands, as she’d done countless times before. He’d beg her forgiveness and then return her to the Shire, where she’d never be placed in danger again. So mired in guilt and grief he didn’t realize he was crying till the world blurred and then he collapsed into himself, curling into a ball on the field. His cries were silent and heaving.

     It wasn’t until his eyes burned dry and red that he began to realize someone was sweeping their hands through his hair, that they’d placed his head in their lap and he’d traded his grip on the loose ground for the tiny waist of his silent companion. Raising his gaze he found just enough voice to cry at the round face under his ragged hat. Grasping her face in his muddy hands he took in the bright amber eyes, made brighter by the tears glistening there, the plump lips, chapped and quivering in a smiled he’d never thought to see again, the plump cheeks flushed red under the mud that he’d smeared there. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” his voice was ragged, little more than a movement of his mouth as he sat there staring into her beloved face.

     A face that crumpled at the lack of voice and shook, negating his grief, grabbing his hair and pulling him into a hug as she trembled, “No, Bofur, no. You’ve nothing to apologize for. It wasn’t you. You would never hurt me.” He felt her lips on his eyes and cheeks and began to shake. How could she just accept them, him, after everything?

     Looking back at her tear tracked face, dried blood from a cut in her scalp crusted to her forehead and in her hair, her smile was blinding as she pressed their foreheads together, and he remembered what bliss was once more. When she moved away he frowned only to feel the familiar ragged brim of his floppy hat fall onto his head. Staring at her he watched as she continued to smile and rearrange his headgear, tugging the loose matted mess of hair behind his ears; trailing her hands down his own tear soaked cheeks. When she was done she grasped his hands, smiling brilliantly, bringing light to the darkness of this dead place.

     Releasing her hands he grabbed the hat from his head, wrapped it onto her own, hiding that vicious blemish as he dragged her forward by the flaps, mouth crushing hers in their first kiss, one of ragged reassurance and mutual love.

     They didn’t move for another twenty minutes, may have stayed there the entire night had Bombur and Bifur not come to check on their errant family member. The Family Ur spent some time crying and celebrating the return of their Burglar before finding their way back to the camp to the joy and celebration of their companions, and a Golden age of Durin’s folk to follow.


End file.
